Obama’s Clean Power Plan Tackles Emissions

Last week President Obama announced an ambitious plan to reduce emissions. His clean power plan targets emissions from old power plants that disproportionately pollute the air. Obama’s plan is intended not only to shut down the dirtiest plants, but also to incentivize those companies that have been working to identify and capture clean energy sources like wind and solar.When I was a law student I interned with the Clean Air Task Force (CATF) in its Boston office, so it was particularly gratifying for me to see this new policy put in place. The staff at CATF has been focused for decades on shutting down the biggest polluters, and it is great to see this issue being tackled at the highest level of government. All that grass roots organizing and painstaking legal strategizing is finally paying off. As I was reading up on emissions issues, I found it interesting to note that while power plants are a huge contributor to emissions, 31% of greenhouse gases each year, there are many other sources of pollution we could be grappling with. Yes, carpooling was of course at the front of my mind, but I actually started thinking about another domestic source of emissions–air conditioning.